Gnarled Hollow

by Charlotte Greene

  “Goddamn it,” Margot said to the empty room. “What a mess.”

  Emily watched her swim to the edge of the pool and crawl out. Margot stood there, surveying her work, but Emily turned her attention to the door again. She didn’t have long to wait. The door to the pool house opened again, and the Julia that had appeared in the doorway a moment later was identical to the one that had just dashed out in fright. She gestured for Emily to follow her, and Emily walked as quickly as she could, impatient now to see what would happen.

  This time, Emily stepped across the threshold into the attic room she and the others had discovered last week. Similar to when they’d found it, the room was trashed with broken, splintered furniture. Emily even saw the box of lead soldiers on the ground where Jim had found them decades later.

  This time, however, Julia was seated in the center of the room on the only chair left intact. Margot was standing near her, her eyes red as if from crying. Two police officers stood in the room as well as a man in a lab coat, possibly a doctor. Julia was staring at the floor, her shoulders almost bent double, hunched in on herself. It took a moment for Emily to realize she was tied to the chair with thick rope.

  Margot was snuffling, and the policemen seemed embarrassed, not sure where to look. Margot smiled weakly. “I’m so sorry. I don’t mean to make a scene. I don’t want to be a nuisance.”

  “Of course not,” the younger policemen said, smiling. “You have every right to be upset after…” His eyes fell on Julia. “After what happened.”

  “I never expected she would do something like this,” Margot said. “We’ve been treating her here at home, but she never seemed violent before.”

  The doctor nodded. “She’s certainly never hurt anyone before today.”

  “What’s the matter with her?” the older policeman said, staring at Julia with clear revulsion.

  “Acute mania brought on by psychosexual hysteria,” the doctor replied without a pause.

  “Psycho—what?” the policeman asked, his face creased with apparent confusion.

  The doctor shook his head and rolled his eyes, obviously impatient with the need to dumb things down. “She suffers from an overwhelming sexual attraction to her siblings.”

  Both policemen reacted with horror, blanching and flinching and physically stepping away from the girl in the chair.

  “Christ,” the older one muttered and then blushed. “My apologies, Miss Margot. Please forgive my language.” He turned back to the doctor. “And you say Julia never acted out like this before?”

  The doctor shook his head. “No. She’s been caught watching her older brother and sister a few times, spying on them, if you will, when they were changing, that kind of thing, and she had all sorts of fantasies about them—unfounded, disgusting things.”

  “How do you know?” the younger one asked. “I thought she couldn’t talk.”

  The doctor looked at the policeman as if he’d just crawled out of the primordial goo. “She can read and write, Officer.” He rolled his eyes again. “Anyway, as I was saying, she was a Peeping Tom, and she had fantasies about them, but she never did anything physical, nothing violent, until now.” He sighed. “Still, I might have seen this coming. We should have institutionalized her long ago.”

  “No!” Margot said. The men stared at her in obvious surprise, and she paled. “I mean, can’t we continue to treat her here?”

  The policemen were clearly dumbfounded. The older one spoke slowly, as if to a child. “She committed murder, Miss Lewis. Your brother, Nathan, is dead because of her. How can you expect her to remain in your house?”

  “Isn’t there a way? The publicity would be awful! It would ruin our family name!” She looked at each man in turn, and each refused to hold her gaze. Margot’s eyes lost some of their phony fright and terror, the expression in them now calculating and cold. “If it’s a matter of payment…”

  All three men looked up in startled shock, but Emily already knew the outcome of this conversation. Despite their current denial and surprise, Margot would eventually convince all of them to go along with her plan, which was to keep her sister locked up in the family attic for the rest of her life. The public would hear that Nathan had drowned in an accident, and Margot would disappear for over a decade, long enough for things to be forgotten in town. Emily turned her back to them, ready to watch for the next Julia to appear in the doorway behind her.

  As if her lack of attention had turned off the show, Emily was suddenly aware that the room had fallen quiet behind her. That same popping sensation came and went in her ears, and the room dimmed, but both sensations were less severe than before. When Emily turned around, she saw Julia standing on the far side of the same attic room, her back to Emily. Some of the broken furniture had been pushed to the side to create a bigger empty space, and a small bed was in here now. The windows now had bars on them.

  Julia turned toward her, and Emily was startled to see her transformation. She was older by years, pale and so thin it was hard to know how she was able to walk. Her feet and lower legs were bare and scratched, and her wrists were chafed and red. She was wearing what amounted to a long, shapeless cotton sack, stained brown with age. This was the Julia Emily had seen in the window the first day she’d come to Gnarled Hollow.

  Something furtive crept into Julia’s expression, and she walked toward the door and toward Emily. Emily jumped out of the way at the last second, horrified to discover what would happen if they touched. Julia leant close to the door, pressing her ear against it, and then turned around and went back to the far side of the room where she’d been. She knelt and removed a floor board, then dug around for a moment and pulled a box from the hole. She sat back on her heels, her face triumphant as she held the box, and then she opened it.

  She pulled out a few folded papers and a journal. Emily watched her set everything except this journal aside on the ground and then stand up with it in her hands. Julia opened it and did something curious. Instead of reading the journal normally, she turned it in her hands and seemed to be reading it on its side. For a moment, Emily was worried that she had lost her mind up here on her own. She seemed completely deranged holding the journal that way.

  Julia continued to read, a smile gradually warming her wan face, and then she jerked, her head snapping toward the door. Emily could hear it now, too: a noise in the hall. Moving quickly, Julia put the papers and journals back into the box and then slid everything in the hole again. She managed to slip the wooden plank over it and move away before the door opened.

  A young woman appeared in the doorway, a nurse’s cap perched on her red, curly hair. She smiled when she saw Julia.

  “Up and about, are you?” she asked needlessly. “I came up to see if you were awake, and I find you actually moving around. What a nice change of pace.”

  Julia gave her a warm smile and walked toward her, holding out her hands. The nurse took both of them in hers and gave her a quick hug. “And you’re feeling friendly, too. Isn’t that lovely? You haven’t gotten out of bed a single time in almost a week! You had me and the doctor very worried.”

  She gave Julia a reproving pout, and Julia shrugged apologetically. The nurse grinned. “But you’re okay now, and the doctor’s out for the day. Do you know what that means? It means, if you’re very good, we can sneak downstairs for a bit. I know you like looking outside, and I’ll let you do that for a while if you’re good. Will you be good for me?”

  Julia nodded vigorously and the nurse laughed. “There’s my little woodchuck. Tell you what—if you’re good downstairs, I’ll give you a second treat: a real bath. How about that?”

  Julia smiled even further, but Emily, who was looking right into her eyes, thought she saw something sad and miserable underneath that smile. As she watched Julia follow the nurse into the hallway, holding her hand like a child, Emily knew once again what she would see if she followed them. Julia would look out the window that was currently in Emily’s bedroom, staring down at the lawn
as if her heart was breaking, and then she would be taken to the bathroom where Emily herself was attacked and nearly drowned. Is that what had happened to Julia? Or had she done it herself? Emily wasn’t sure it mattered anymore—either way, Julia had died, alone and forgotten, labelled a murderer by her homicidal sister.

  When Emily walked through the door to finally follow, she wasn’t expecting another shift, but it happened, and she reeled, almost falling over before she regained her balance again. June, Lara, and Jim were seated at the table in her bedroom, eyes closed. Her chair was still tipped over on the ground, just as she had left it. Likewise, her bedroom had returned. It was the same as she remembered, down to her coffee cup and the sock she’d forgotten to pick up this morning. She moved closer to the table, almost holding her breath, and thought she detected movement beneath each of her companion’s eyelids, almost as if they were sleeping.

  Before she could look at them any closer, she heard the grandfather clock chiming far off in a different part of the house and the more distant sound of dogs barking outside. She set her chair upright again and sat back down. She grabbed June and Jim’s hands before the fourth chime on the clock stopped ringing.

  June opened her eyes and blinked a few times before turning and smiling at her. “That’s funny. I think I fell asleep for a second. Did you?”

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Mark and Chris were bent over some folded papers, delicate with age and damaged with damp. Unlike the journals and other papers they’d found in the desk in the library, the box had been kept in a terrible atmosphere for paper. The attic was less insulated than the rest of the house, and the space under the floorboards was even worse. Chris was seated so close to Mark that their shoulders were flush and touching, but neither man seemed to notice.

  They’d all waited until the searchers went home to retrieve the box from the attic. After the séance, when the four of them left her bedroom, they gathered with Mark and Chris in the sitting room, and Emily had given all of them the entire story of what she’d experienced. Lara had wanted to search for the box immediately, but Jim had prudently pointed out that it might provoke suspicion should the police want to question them further.

  They’d all spent the evening impatiently waiting for everyone outside to leave, which, luckily, was much sooner than the night before. Clearly the search-and-rescue officials and volunteers were starting to lose hope. With no sign that Harry had even gone onto the grounds or into the woods, they were now beginning to wonder if they should bother to search them beyond what they’d already done.

  The woods of Gnarled Hollow estate were enormous and, given the landscape, a dangerous place, with untamed foliage and steep, rising hills in most directions. A final decision regarding the continuation of the search would be discussed during a conference in town, and the six of them would be phoned in the morning with an update.

  When the taillights of the final searcher had disappeared around the corner of the driveway, they’d all gone at once, wordlessly, up to the attic. Without asking the others, Emily removed the floorboard and pulled out the wooden box. It was filthy with age, clearly untouched after all this time. The others stood inside the doorway or out in the hall, their faces identically serious and grim. Here, for the first time, was proof.

  Relatively sure they wouldn’t be interrupted, they’d all gone back downstairs and removed the contents, one by one, onto the coffee table in the sitting room. June was seated near Emily, her face white and lined. Jim and Lara were likewise drained, as if the séance had taken something out of all of them. Only Emily had come back from the experience energized and excited, recharged, in a way.

  “Interesting.” Mark leaned back and away from the papers he’d been inspecting.

  “Very,” Chris said.

  “What is it?” Emily asked.

  Mark held it out for her. “The last will and testament of Mr. Nathan Lewis. He left everything to his illegitimate daughter, Hilda Grossman. It was written on June 21, 1919. According to this, the little girl was born two days before.”

  “There’s that date again,” Lara said quietly. “Today’s date.”

  Emily took it from him and scanned it briefly. More than simply willing his money and estate to his daughter, Nathan had gone so far as to leave very clear instructions to disinherit his two younger sisters, mentioning an earlier, previous will that had split the estate between them. She looked at the date again and realized she’d forgotten something when she was telling them everything she’d witnessed during the séance. She held up the will and waved it. “He must have written this the morning he died.”

  Mark leaned forward, frowning. “What makes you think that?”

  “I forgot to mention, but he and Margot were joking about the gardens right before he got in the pool, right before she killed him. He said Julia had been up that morning watching the sun rise on her new gardens.”

  Mark shook his head. “But his obituary said he didn’t die until July. July 8th, in fact, according to my notes from the archive.”

  Emily held up her hands. “We know they covered it up and put out that he was drowned by accident. Maybe the date was part of the cover-up.”

  Mark raised his eyebrows. “Could be.”

  “It would certainly explain why today is so important to the presence in this house,” Lara said. “I don’t think the séance would have worked any other day. It had to be today.”

  Emily returned her attention to the will, rereading it one more time. When she was finished, she held it out for Mark, surprised by what she’d just read. “It looks like he even had witnesses.” She pointed to the signatures.

  “If he’d given that to his lawyer, as he intended, we wouldn’t be sitting here right now.” Mark paused for a moment, eyebrows lowering. “In fact, it might be legal even now, considering it was witnessed. I’m not sure.”

  “Why would he disinherit his sisters?” June asked.

  Mark shrugged. “I don’t know. It seems from what Emily told us that the baby meant something to him. Or maybe he was angry with Margot for some reason, or disgusted with her and what they were doing together.”

  Everyone turned to Emily as if for explanation, and this role was beginning to seem automatic and natural to her. Her throat hurt again, and her neck was painful to the touch, but her voice was a little stronger than it had been this morning. Still, she had to clear her throat and keep her voice low to avoid straining it further. “I don’t know. I mean, from what I saw, it looked like he and Margot started having an affair again after he came back from school, but I think he was always ashamed of it. Maybe cutting her off was his way of cleaning the slate.”

  “But what about Julia?” June asked. “She was innocent in all of this, wasn’t she?”

  Emily shook her head again. “I don’t know. She seemed to be, but then again, I only saw what she showed me. She was certainly innocent of his murder, but who knows what happened before, after Nathan came back from school.”

  “We should contact a lawyer,” Mark suggested, glancing at Lara. “And a private investigator. This Hilda Grossman could be tracked down. We know her birthday and where she was born, so it shouldn’t be too hard to find her if she’s still alive, or her family if she isn’t.”

  “Yes, we should,” Lara said. “The estate should go to the real descendants, if possible.” Everyone was surprised, and Lara, seeing their expressions, grinned. “I know what you’re thinking, but believe me, my aunt would be relieved to get rid of it.” She grinned more broadly. “Except for the money, of course.”

  Jim finally seemed to stir to life. He stretched and yawned with a little yodel, shaking his head as if to wake himself. He pointed at the contents of the box on the table. “What else was in there?”

  “Another journal,” Mark said, handing it to Emily. He riffled through the other papers briefly. “Here’s some kind of letter. The first paragraph mentions the Turner.” He handed it to June and again opened some more of the folded papers,
setting each aside after he glanced at them. “We’ll have to read the rest of this more closely, but I think they’re legal documents. A lawyer might make more of them than I can.”

  June laughed a moment later, and everyone looked at her. She held up the letter Mark had given her. “This explains one thing, anyway.”

  “What?” Chris asked.

  “The Turner was bought from Aris Rilke—a famous art dealer in the early twentieth century.” She smiled. “Or a famous thief, to be more accurate. The painting must be one of the Turners she stole from a private collection in 1918, during the Great War. The original owner died in battle, and he never catalogued anything, so no one knows what went missing, and no one ever came forward to tell anyone about what they’d bought from Rilke. She was caught selling a painting one of the heirs recognized, but she never revealed anything else she’d stolen.” June pointed at the Turner on the wall. “Now we know at least one of them. Even in 1919, when this letter is dated, it would have been nearly impossible to get a real Turner. It seems like Margot found a way to do that.” She set the letter down on the table, almost reverently. “This is the first piece of evidence that has ever been found regarding the stolen collection, and it mentions the names of other pieces Rilke had for sale. I can hardly believe I’m actually seeing this.”

  “Going to be a great publication,” Mark said, grinning.

  June’s eyebrows rose, as if she hadn’t thought of this possibility before. “You’re right. It is.”

  “No doubt going to ruffle some feathers, too,” Jim said, grinning. “Some of the owners of those works might still have them.”

  June laughed. “Some of them will be surprised to know they have stolen goods.”

  She got up to examine the Turner more closely, letter still in hand, and Emily had a momentary longing for her so deep and so strong, she had to stop herself from rising to join her. She would have given anything to be alone with her for a while, just holding her hand. This morning already seemed like a thousand years ago.